Tuesday, October 31, 2006

And as I promised earlier, we're going to look in on Spanky, Alfalfa and the rest of the gang, to truly appreciate the level of dumbassitude over at ThePolitic.com.

Here, we have Spanky totally fucking up the explanation of a recent COMPAS poll on the "Defense of Ignorant Bigotry Act" (or DORA). Quotes Spanky:

The COMPAS poll suggested there would be significant public support for such a move, with 72% of those contacted for the survey saying that clergy should have the right not to marry a same-sex couple if it runs counter to their beliefs.

“Those numbers are at the level of overwhelming support,” said pollster Conrad Winn, the president of COMPAS. “I mean, you can’t get three-quarters of Canadians to agree on the weather.”

But the above is simply not an issue -- no one is suggesting that members of the clergy should be forced to marry anyone they would prefer not to. That point has never been even remotely open to debate -- marriages within the context of a religious ceremony are entirely up to the dictates of the denomination, so what Spanky is presenting here is a red herring, from one end to the other.

(What's amusing about that poll number, though, is that only 72% of respondents agreed with that position. Quite simply, it really should have been virtually 100% since, as I pointed out, that issue is not even on the table. The fact that some 28% actually dissented is something I find moderately interesting. But that's not why we're here. We're here to deal with Spanky's overwhelming dumbfuckitude, so ... onward.)

A COMPAS poll conducted last week found 57% of those surveyed said officials who conduct generally secular wedding ceremonies should be allowed to “not officiate at gay marriages,” provided there are enough marriage commissioners available for same-sex unions.

You will, of course, notice how carefully that question seems to be phrased -- specifically within the context of same-sex marriage. But what if the question were worded in a more appropriate way which represented its actual consequences for public employees in Canada as a whole? Something like:

Should Canadian public employees, who are paid by the taxpayer, be allowed to discriminate against anyone based on their personal bigotry?

Now that's the way the question should have been presented, and I'm betting we would have seen somewhat less than 57%. Besides, I notice that that figure of 57% was based on the assumption that there would be another official available to perform the SSM ceremony. And if there wasn't? Was that question even asked? Because if it was, I'm betting that figure of 57% would have dropped significantly, which only proves how very carefully these questions were constructed to produce the desired outcome.

In short, the poll is worthless, Wattie's article is crap, and Spanky's opinion on all of the aforementioned is amazingly ignorant swill, masquerading as a blog post. Colour me shocked.

P.S. Given the irrelevant and/or outright misleading questions in that survey, does it come as any surprise that the opening sentence of the poll itself is:

Following enactment of same sex legislation, COMPAS was commissioned by The National Post and the Institute for Canadian Values to gauge the public’s attitudes towards freedom of religion under the law.

The National Post and the Institute for Canadian Values. Is it any wonder that the survey is utter crap? Note carefully two of the issues that were raised: about writing a letter to the editor about SSM, and a printer refusing to print a gay group brochure, both of which hideously misrepresent two recent events that were savagely debunked here.

In the end, I'm not sure if the folks at the Politic.com are pathetically dishonest, or just astonishingly stupid. But, frankly, I doubt it's worth investing the time to find out.

LATE BUT ENTERTAINING OBSERVATION: Did anyone else catch the interesting wording used here:

A COMPAS poll conducted last week found 57% of those surveyed said officials who conduct generally secular wedding ceremonies ...

"Generally secular?" And in what way, might I ask, would a same-sex marriage be necessarily non-secular? Man, the dishonesty of this poll is seriously jaw-dropping. We just need some Jews and badges, and the atrocity would be complete.

And given that the Canadian wankersphere is getting all moist over the idea of the "Defense of Religions Act" yet again, it behooves us here at CC HQ to explain the etymology of the word "behooves." Um, no, wait ... wrong column.

Actually, since aforementioned wankers seem adamant that they would like to define "marriage" exclusively in the spiritual, Godly, Scriptural sense, it behooves us to point out just what sort of bad craziness that would get us into, Scripturally speaking.

Said wankers would love to convince us that the proper, Godly version of marriage is, naturally, between one man and one woman (you know, Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, that sort of thing). They would, of course, be wrong (II Samuel 3, if I may be so bold):

1 The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.

2 Sons were born to David in Hebron: His firstborn was Amnon the son of Ahinoam of Jezreel;

3 his second, Kileab the son of Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel; the third, Absalom the son of Maacah daughter of Talmai king of Geshur;

4 the fourth, Adonijah the son of Haggith; the fifth, Shephatiah the son of Abital;

5 and the sixth, Ithream the son of David's wife Eglah. These were born to David in Hebron.

Well, now ... that's quite the stable of fillies David has there, isn't it? So, logically, the right to polygamy should be a no-brainer. Apparently, those Mormons were right after all. Go figure.

And there's this beaut (Deuteronomy 22):

13 If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her 14 and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, "I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity," 15 then the girl's father and mother shall bring proof that she was a virgin to the town elders at the gate. 16 The girl's father will say to the elders, "I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. 17 Now he has slandered her and said, 'I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.' But here is the proof of my daughter's virginity." Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, 18 and the elders shall take the man and punish him. 19 They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver [b] and give them to the girl's father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.

20 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be found, 21 she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge the evil from among you.

Ooooooooh ... that's gonna put a serious crimp in pre-marital fun and games, isn't it? But far be it from me to argue with Scripture. And, not surprisingly, the Biblical marital awkwardness doesn't stop there, does it? Which inspires the following thought.

If and when the DoRA is brought up in Parliament, I think it would be only fitting that some member of the Opposition introduce a similar bill. It could properly be called the "Defense of Biblical Marriage Act," and it would seek to codify into Canadian law everything from both the Old and New Testaments related to marriage -- polygamy, a ban on divorce, stoning of non-virgins ... that sort of high comedy.

Said bill would, of course, have absolutely no chance of passing, but it would be tremendously entertaining to watch Canada's Biblically-inspired idiots have to publicly denounce the very concept of Biblical marriage. The amusement value alone would make the whole exercise worth it, wouldn't you say?

HOIST. PETARD. YOU KNOW THE REST. Commenter Mike writes:

Well, the religious nuts ought to be here any minute to explain that they ignore all that stuff in the Old Testament and only follow the New Testament proclamations on marriage.

Except that that strategy would still have a couple of problems. In the first place, Jesus himself was seriously down on the whole idea of divorce:

Mark 10: 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." 10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."

so hiding behind the New Testament is still going to be a mite awkward, divorce-wise.

The bigger problem, though, is that every single Scriptural condemnation of homosexuality is found exclusively in (you guessed it) the Old Testament -- Jesus never said a word about homosexuality, which forces the idiotically devout into a thoroughly inconsistent and selective application of Scripture.

The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., predicted last week that Iraqi security forces would be able to take control of the country in 12 to 18 months. But several days spent with American units training the Iraqi police illustrated why those soldiers on the ground believe it may take decades longer than Casey's assessment.

We'll be coming back to this later today but, over at the "He-Man Woman Hater's Club," Spanky is getting a little woody over the apparent resurgence of the DoRA. Feel free to document the distortions in both Spanky's piece and in Chris Wattie's abomination of a National Post article.

P.S. Olaf, you might want to sit this one out and just pay attention, so that you actually have a fucking clue before you start espousing really idiotic opinions. Seriously.

Back here, we have the most exciting SWC-related brouhaha going, in which increasingly-annoying commenter Olaf seems to think everyone else is obligated to do his work for him. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Olaf's argument is this single line of his:

Since the funding cuts for the SWC program have been announced, it would therefore, logically, be upto you (or others who oppose the spending cuts, which you haven't explicitly stated) to argue how such cuts will be detrimental to the goal of women's equality, and how, were the funding to be reinstated, women's equality would receive tangible benefits.

See how that works? Apparently, in Olaf's opinion, the CPoC need only announce and implement cuts utterly arbitrarily with no justification whatsoever, whereupon it will be up to critics to do all of the legwork to defend a "reinstatement" of the aforementioned funding.

How convenient for the CPoC and its Kool-Aid swilling followers -- a "guilty until you prove yourself innocent" attitude -- sort of like tossing people in jail arbitrarily and making them prove that they're not terrorists, or invading Iraq because Saddam Hussein couldn't prove he didn't have weapons of mass destruction, or ... well, you get the idea.

The CPoC never justified even minimally why the SWC deserved to have its funding cut. All we heard were horrified gasps of "advocacy" or "radical feminism," and the funding got chopped, whereupon those who want the funding restored are now expected to produce detailed justification for why the funding should be reinstated -- justification that, as I'm sure you're aware, will be invariably dismissed for one reason or another. Or simply ignored.

What a great gig. Although, in its defense, it really is the only way to be governed by the intellectually bereft. It's not like those folks have a lot of other options.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Remember, not that long ago, when Bill Clinton finally had enough of right-wing hack Chris Wallace and proceeded to dismantle him, logically and meticulously? This, naturally, proved only that Clinton was unhinged, deranged, and couldn't control his temper, according to the wankersphere.

And for those of you who need an intellectual challenge, the following brain teaser. Compare and contrast the following quotes. First, there's this:

"This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids ... We the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed ... You can't solve a problem until the majority of the people believe you have a problem that needs to be solved."

Then there's this:

This past couple of weeks as the Dow continues to break new all-time records, most people haven’t even got the slightest clue that it’s happening. For example, there’s nothing about it hitting another all-time high today in Canada’s financial capital’s favorite newspaper, the far-leftist Toronto Star. Nothing! Of course they’re not “into” that whole “capitalist” thing. Liberals are against that! Too competitive!

Coincidence? Oh, please -- you can't possibly be that naive. But here's the best part from the Yahoo piece above:

Saddam Hussein's chief lawyer warned Sunday of worsening violence in Iraq and chaos across the Mideast if the ex-president is sentenced to death at his trial for a crackdown on a Shiite Muslim village in the 1980s.

Oooooooh, a tough moral dilemma -- take a shot at boosting GOP fortunes just before the elections with a "guilty" verdict, but at the expense of increasing violence across the Mideast and perhaps costing the lives of more U.S. troops.

And over at the "He-Man Woman Haters Club" clubhouse, Spanky puts those uppity girls in their place:

The tag-line is “Do you believe in free speech?” Why yes, I do. The question for the Dixie Chicks, if they are able to come down from their crosses long enough to answer, is: Do The Dixie Chicks believe in free speech? If yes, then why are they making a movie in order to complain about being called “Dixie Bimbos” in the wake of their criticisms of George W. Bush? Isn’t that free speech too? Or should they have been protected from that sort of free speech?

ThePolitic.com: When there are serious issues to be discussed, but you'd rather not, thanks.

ABOUT THAT "FREE SPEECH" STUFF: As Miss C points out (and as I have already blogged on but should have reminded everyone about), free speech apparently doesn't extend to allowing the Chicks the same freedom as others to advertise their own movie, does it, Spanky? And you thought the U.S. airwaves were a public trust. You poor, deluded sucker.

Over at True North, 12th-grade high school student Jason is just plumb filled with admiration:

Major Sprague was injured but now he wants to go back and fight. He isn't complaining about his bed or his salary or how the nurses are treating him. He just wants to go back. There aren't many people like him these days.

Which is too bad, since every one of them that returns to the battlefield is one less reason for Jason to hump his sorry ass down to a recruiting centre.

Canada's conservatives: Supporting the troops by "discussing political and economic issues," as well as providing "a youth's perspective on current events, one that's not tainted by leftist teaching." I mean, more armoured-up Hummers and Kevlar vests would help, but that youth's perspective thing -- yeah, that's nice, too, I guess.

Back here, we have a couple of Canada's less celebrated conservatives, apparently unable to grasp the concept of "the Google." Olaf comments:

What an admirable defense of the SWC program. I mean, throughout the whole thing, you didn't once mention what it does or why it's important.

Further down, "Anonymous" whines:

Sorry ladies, if the program is worth keeping, defend it on it's [sic] merits. It should be easy if it worth keeping. If you can't come up with a rational arguement to keep it, then it is a waste of money and should be scrapped.

In all fairness, I should apologize. It never occurred to me that critics of the SWC were, in fact, unfamiliar with the concept of an online search engine and would be unable to Google on, say, "5 things feminism did for me," which would eventually lead them here and give them enough to ponder while waiting for the next episode of The 700 Club or something.

So ... can you boys take it from there, or do you need someone to read all that stuff to you as well?

That will teach me to say something nice about a Blogging Tory. Having complimented BT Backseat Blogger for being genuinely worth reading at times, his reaction was (tongue in cheek, of course) to wonder how he'd ever be able to show his face in BT circles again (which was amusing). He then proceeded to demonstrate why I think the Blogging Tories are, in general, such a colossal waste of time.

Writes BB:

While I must consider the source of the compliment, how will I be able to hold up my head in company of my fellow Blogging Whorries? How will I be able to reestablish my credentials as a political neanderthal and a regressive conservative?

I have just the thing. I’ll blog about SOW(aka the Status of Women) and the Court Challenges Program. These are two initiative near and dear to the Fiberal and Dipper bleeding hearts and ones that I haven’t blogged on yet.

Yes, BB starts off well by using the unofficial and derogatory acronym of "SOW" rather than the correct "SWC", thus firmly establishing his "neanderthal" credentials. And, sadly, it's all downhill from there.

(Aside: The rest of this post doesn't so much specifically address points made by BB, but more generally addresses arguments made by Canada's wingnuts about things like the SWC.)

Let's first dismiss the idiotic justification for slashing SWC funding as being for economic reasons. At the moment, it's safe to say that Canada in general has no overwhelming need to pinch pennies. Even the intellectual midgets at the National Post have managed to figure this out:

Surplus reaches $13.2 billionGovernment to cut $1 billion anyway

Note how even the Post admits that, given the surplus, cutting one billion dollars is at least a little curious with their use of the word "anyway." And even if one ignores that oddity, it's not like cutting $5 million from the SWC would represent a significant saving, would it? In fact, that amount represents less than 4/100 of one per cent of the amount of the surplus, yet we're told, in all seriousness, that it's justified because the Conservatives are such careful and frugal watchdogs of the public purse.

So, please -- can we knock off this unspeakably idiotic excuse that cuts to things like SWC are solely for economic reasons? But if that's not the case, then what reason does that leave us? Simple -- the SWC had to have its funding cut because it was engaging in (gasp! horrors!) "advocacy."

Well, duh.

How stupid do you have to be to make that argument in all seriousness? Of course they were engaged in advocacy! What is politics but advocacy of one viewpoint or another?

Why does one run for political office? Because they have a point of view they would like to advocate. Why did Canada's wankerhood vote for the CPoC? Because they agreed with the opinions being advocated by that same CPoC. Jesus, what's not to understand here? So rather than criticize the SWC for simply being involved in "advocacy," it's incumbent on its critics to explain what it is they don't like about what is being advocated. And, sadly, what you hear is little more than that the SWC espouses "radical feminism."

That is, quite simply, a justification that isn't even worthy of a petulant 8-year-old. If Canada's wankers feel they can dismiss an entire program as being nothing more than "radical feminism," then I have the right to bitch-slap Christianity as being nothing more than "pig-ignorant, superstitious swill." You want to play dueling catchphrases? Fucking A, I can play that game, too.

So what's left? What's left is for critics of the SWC, if they want to be taken seriously, to list what was being advocated by that group, and explain why they thought it was inappropriate, at which point we'll at least have something to discuss. But for anyone to defend what happened to the SWC as being for economic reasons or because it involved "advocacy" or that it promoted "radical feminism" is the height of intellectual laziness.

Which, if you think about it, is pretty much the Blogging Tories in a nutshell, isn't it?

BY THE WAY, the most annoying part of BB's screed:

I will cheerfully admit that I know virtually nothing about SOW beyond the fact that the minister responsible cut back its funding recently. Cue howls of protest from the usual suspects.

Here, let me translate that for you: "I have no fucking clue what this 'SOW' thing is all about, but if cutting its funding pisses off the lefties, then I'm so on board."

That pretty well defines the notion of unspeakable intellectual laziness, doesn't it?

Stuff like this gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "circle jerk." Here, we have Canada's Crazy-Assed Racist Redneck, linking to Victor Davis Hanson, writing about Charles Krauthammer. Can you even find a more closed system than that?

Or here, we have Blogging Tory "At Home in Hespeler" linking to Michelle Malkin interviewing Mark Stein [sic]. Lord, but if he'd only pulled Matt Drudge into it, he would have had a trifecta.

Now, when it comes time passing legislation to get tough on crime, the opposition parties are going against their word. Are we surprised? Not really, the leftist parties really don't believe in being tough on crime, and when they promise to do anything, they never keep their promises anyway.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper accused the opposition Thursday of being "anti-democratic" — even as the Liberals offered an olive branch by agreeing to pass more than half of Harper's proposed tough-on-crime bills.

... Under the Liberal proposal Thursday, six pieces of crime legislation the Tories want approved would get speedy passage through the Commons. The Liberals said that would leave plenty of time to study and debate another five bills that are seen by the Opposition as more contentious.

It's getting seriously depressing that, over at Daimnation, Damian Penny seems to outdo himself in that each new member of his web site is even dumber than the ones that came before. How else to explain this bit of airheadedness by Daimnation member Jon N:

A new report by the Heritage Foundation finds the US military continues to attract a healthy representative sample of Americans. It shows that young Americans are still up to the challenge of confronting evil. Not the ones who protest for peace as if terrorists care about what they have to say, the ones who do something about it (and risk their lives for it). Now why won't the media recognize that?

From Who Are the Recruits? The Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Enlistment, 2003–2005 by Tim Kane, Ph.D.: ...

If there's one thing more amusing than watching the wankersphere take an asinine position, it's watching them adopt a completely contrary and equally asinine position the next day.

Once upon a time, it was all the rage to savage the Dixie Chicks, remember? Cutting airplay, CD-crushing parties, that sort of thing. Trashing the Chicks was the in thing, wankerifically speaking, and even some Blogging Tories got in on the act, gloating over their alleged lacklustre popularity yearslater.

Well, the Chicks are back in the news, but now the wankersphere is having a hard time getting their talking points in order. Now, some of those same wanks are suggesting that this latest example of suppression of free speech is just a cheap publicity stunt by the Chicks themselves.

Oh, come on, you wankers. That is ever so lame. You couldn't stop gloating how you dissed the Chicks before, so let's not change direction now. Suppression of free speech -- that's your baby so let's own it, shall we? You've never had any problems crushing dissent before so let's not go all waffly now, just because those same sleazy tactics seem to be backfiring. So suck it up and stand on whatever principles you have left. As your hero George W. Bush would say, "stay the course."

A bizarre filibuster and a strategically placed olive branch marked a parliamentary battle Thursday over who's to blame for a legislative logjam.

Opposition parties accused the minority Conservative government of intentionally paralyzing Parliament as one legislative committee after another stalled.

The highlight was a spectacle unprecedented in recent memory — a government MP filibustering to block an Opposition bill.

The Conservatives ran out the clock at an environment committee meeting as a Tory MP spoke for two straight hours on an arcane procedural point. The move stalled opposition members trying to push forward a private member's bill that would force the government to respect the Kyoto accord on greenhouse gases.

... Prime Minister Stephen Harper accused the opposition Thursday of being "anti-democratic" — even as the Liberals offered an olive branch by agreeing to pass more than half of Harper's proposed tough-on-crime bills.

Which inspires the following question -- is Joel Johannesen just too fucking stupid to waste any more time on? Seriously. Is there any point continually picking apart Canada's answer to Rain Man?

Well, given that numerous Blogging Tories have practically shit themselves over the recent Malcolm Watson incident, what the hell, I might as well weigh in with the following opinion: Canada has (as far as I can tell) absolutely no grounds for complaint. And, yes, I'd be happy to explain.

As I read it, Watson is a Canadian landed immigrant living in St. Catharines with his wife and three children, which inspires the only question that has any relevance in this situation -- does Canada have the right to deport him for what he's done? Yes or no? That's it -- that's the only question that counts. And why is that?

Because if what Watson did would not be grounds for deportation, then Canada has no grounds for complaint if he continues to live in St. Catharines. It really is that simple. If he would not have been deported, then the only other possibility is that he would have been allowed to continue living in St. Catharines, exactly the situation he is in now. So what's the problem?

The problem, of course, is the U.S.'s insistence that he not return to the U.S. except for probation hearings. But that is not an issue that involves Canada. If being barred to that extent from the U.S. poses a hardship to Watson, then that's an issue that Watson and his lawyer can take up with American immigration, and they are free to make that argument. But that in no way involves Canada.

The last part of that article does suggest that the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board will be reviewing Watson's case and might very well order his deportation, which is certainly within their purview. But, legally speaking, the only decision for the Canadian government to make here would be to deport Watson or not. If it chooses to let him continue living in St. Catharines, it has absolutely no say over how the U.S. government chooses to treat him.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, which should be blindingly obvious from the above.BOILING THIS DOWN TO ITS ESSENCE. Grog comments (among other things):

Like the United States, we reserve the right to deny convicted criminals who are not Canadian citizens the right to enter our borders.

Fair enough, but I want to make sure readers understand the fundamental point I'm trying to make here. Let's say that everything else about this case happened exactly the same way, but that the United States didn't effectively bar Watson from returning to the U.S. Would people still have had the same outrage that he was being allowed to continue living in Canada? If not, then they have no right to complain now.

Quite simply, Canadians should look only at how Canada should react to a landed immigrant who already lives here who is convicted of a crime, using no more information than that. Deportation or no deportation? Make a decision. But that's not what's happening.

What's happening is that outraged Canadians are factoring into their outrage the fact that the U.S. has barred Watson from re-entry except for probation hearings. But how the U.S. decides to deal with Watson should have no bearing on how Canada resolves this.

It's annoying to hear people whine about how Canada is being used as a "dumping ground" for American felons. It isn't. The man is a landed immigrant who already lives here. Let Canada make a legal decision based on that information, and only that information. What the U.S. does about it should not be a factor.

And despite his being a member of the Blogging Tories, Backseat Blogger is frequently pleasantly logical and coherent. What I find most amusing about the subject of that post is one of Canadian super-Christian Charles McVety's arguments against SSM: "Even homosexuals have rejected same sex marriage."

Giving McVety the benefit of the doubt, one might grant that he really meant that some gays have rejected SSM, and that is somehow enough to dismiss it in its entirety. This would, of course, be the same argument used against funding the Status of Women Canada -- that it somehow didn't represent all Canadian women (only those with functioning brain stems) and, therefore, it had to be rejected. Using the same logic, one might mention to McVety that some Christians have rejected the divinity of Jesus.

You know, I really need to find something more challenging ... like slapping quadraplegics out of their wheelchairs or something.

Remember how Joel Johannesen and the rest of the circle jerk over at PTBC were popping the bubbly over the recent Dow Jones exuberance? Sadly, though, as with all things Joel-related, there's reality. But you saw that coming, didn't you?

Joel Johannesen: When you have some totally dumbass, right-wing talking points you need regurgitated and you need a useful idiot. The operative word here being "idiot."

But that doesn't mean we still can't whack some of its Canadian members upsidethe head every so often. I mean, you Americans have Jonah Goldberg and Michelle Malkin, and we can't let TBogg have all the fun.

And if you close your eyes and wish real hard, maybe Tinkerbell will come back to life:

Under a barrage of sharp questions from reporters, pointing again and again to contradictions and problems in his stance on Iraq, President Bush clung to his most basic line of defense -- his own faith and confidence in his approach. He used the word "believe" 21 times in the course of the hour-long news conference.

Damian Penny makes several good points, but his prose could still stand a little tweaking. How about:

A good argument for privatizing Canada Post marriage commissioners, or at least ending its monopoly on regular mail delivery formalizing marriages: members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers Marriage Commissioners, one of the most militantly left-wing right-wing unions in the country, appointing themselves postal marriage censors ...

The pamphlet notion of same-sex marriage certainly sounds disgusting, but it is the government's right to decide whether it should be criminalized as hate speech or banned from the mail legal, not postal workers marriage commissioners. On principle, I would not support such a move, but at least Members of Parliament have some democratic legitimacy. The members of CUPW Canada's batshit-crazy wankerhood are acting like, well, fundamentalists fundamentalists.

There we go ... much better. Isn't it amazing what a good copy editor can do?

OH, DEAR. Other Blogging Tories (and their commenters) just not quite drawing the parallels.

Bonus points if you can read past accusations of "self-appointed censors" without rolling your eyes and bursting into girlish giggles.

Vancouver postal workers have walked off the job to protest an anti-gay pamphlet they are being asked to deliver. The brochure is being distributed by a religious group and amounts to hate mail. Despite this Canada Post is saying that they are facing disciplinary action if they refuse to handle it.

Yes, it does put those postal workers in a bit of a bind but here's a wild and crazy idea: Why don't those carriers claim that delivering that mail would offend their personal religious beliefs?

Of course, given that those posties are public workers, I'm pretty sure that Canada's conservatives, being the stalwart defenders of public tax dollars that they are, would be absolutely outraged by the very idea.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Mark C. goes all scary booga-booga, right-wing stenographer on us as he gullibly quotes from the Unification Church Daily:

...bin Laden, et. al, know the biggest prize looms just ahead — the chance that the Republican Party will be ousted from one or both houses of Congress.

... But what will bin Laden and his Islamist allies think? Well, if Republican defeat comes to pass, they will first thank the Almighty — "Allahu Akhbar!" or "God is the greatest!"...

Yes, what a blow it would be to American security and foreign policy if the Democrats were to seize control of one or both Houses. And the GOP this close to victory in Iraq. Of all the rotten timing, eh?

"So you were against the invasion of Iraq, huh? You don't think we should have invaded and taken out Saddam, is that it? What are you saying -- that the Iraqis were better off under Saddam? Is that what you're suggesting? That they were actually better off under Saddam? Huh? Is that it?"

Over at MyBlahg, Paladiea gives us a delightful sampling of right-wing logic with respect to birth control and emergency contraception from pompous, pious blowhards whose morals are for sale on a moment's notice depending on the circumstances:

William Levada is currently prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a post last held by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - now Pope Benedict XVI. While still Archbishop of Portland, Levada objected to paying support costs of a child fathered by a seminarian by arguing that the woman should have used birth control.

The Catholic Church. Their ongoing motto: "We've got principles. And if you don't like those principles, well, we've got others."

A computer geek was walking down the street when a second geek rode up on a shiny new bicycle.

"Where did you get such a great bike?" asked the first geek. Replied the second, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, tore off all her clothes and said 'Take what you want!'"

The first geek looked at the bike, nodded approvingly and said, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Daily Telegraph defence correspondent Con Coughlin says Iraq was lost in the first few weeks after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, when the Americans shut down Iraq's old military and government institutions

Wow. I mean, who would have guessed that sweeping the Ba'athists out would have such nasty blowback? Oh, wait ... this guy did, as far back as 2003:

In removing the Baath regime and eliminating constraints on Iraqi Islamism, the United States has unleashed a new political force in the Gulf: not the upsurge of civic organization and democratic sentiment fantasized by American neoconservatives, but the aspirations of Iraqi Shiites to build an Islamic republic. That result was an entirely predictable consequence of the past 30 years of political conflict between the Shiites and the Baathist regime, and American policy analysts have expected a different result only by ignoring that history.

Ooooooh ... that Juan Cole, he one smart guy, no? Just the kind of guy you'd like to have giving you advice in situations like that, right? Apparently not.

The American neo-con movement: where staying stupid isn't just a job, it's a way of life.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Yes, that annoying whine of high-pitched hysteria you hear is, in fact, emanating from the Blogging Tories, as they shriek like little girls over a recent decision to strike down one component of Canada's anti-terrorism legislation.

Ignore, of course, that the individual involved in this case, Mohammed Momin Khawaja, is still in jail awaiting trial. Ignore that even the federal prosecutor in the case doesn't think this development will hurt his case. Ignore that some legal experts think this might even make it easier to convict similar defendants. Yes, let's ignore the actual facts because it's so much easier to pontificate like a pompous gasbag from a position of eye-rolling ignorance. Sort of like this:

But wanting to prosecute people who’d love to blow scores of innocent people up on account of some perverted interpretation of a religion is not cool, an Ontario court has ruled. The Supremes will likely agree with the lower court (lest they be targeted by terrorists), but the Crown should appeal the decision anyway.

An Ontario judge used the Charter today to knock out a key part of Canada's anti-terrorist law. Just what we need when we're fighting a war on terror is someone sympathetic to the other side. Nice going, Justice Douglas Rutherford. Here's the Globe report and the CBC report.

This is another reason, as if we needed one, why the Charter itself should be abolished. It's being used by the non-elected judiciary to thwart the will of the people.

iamnotafraid.ca? or ijustwetmypants.ca? We report, you decide.

BY THE WAY, what I find so entertaining is how the above airheads so thoroughly misunderstood the consequences of the ruling, consequences you can read about here (emphasis added):

In June, Justice Minister Vic Toews suggested that the motive clause impeded prosecutors and could have led to accusations of racial profiling.

University of Ottawa law professor David Paciocco said the ruling has advantages for prosecutors.

"Normally in criminal law we don't worry about why the act was done for two reasons," he said. "First, if the harm occurs and it's intentional, it doesn't matter why, and sccondly, the toughest thing to ever prove is why."

Um ... exactly. Now that that section has been struck down, prosecutors technically should have an easier time getting a conviction, since they don't have to establish an "ideological, religious or political motivation" for an act of terrorism.

Lord, but if I keep reading the Blogging Tories, I might need to go back on cocaine.

Immediate need for project-based native speaking linguists in Afghan Pashto, Farsi, Dari, and in Canadian French. No translation involved. Project involves creating phonetic pronunciations of translated phrases for militiary/intelligence use. Pashto, Dari and Farsi linguists selected must have current, colloquial, Afghan "street language" knowledge of their respective language. Canadian French must be Quebecois. The material is not formal or in a literary form of the language. Must be familiar with basic military/intelligence terminology.

The listed organization, Kwikpoint, has a web page here, and advertises that "A Kwikpoint Visual Language Translator is a colorful picture card that lets you communicate with anyone, regardless of language, by simply pointing at pictures."

I'm guessing that their flash card that says, "Please don't kidnap me, I am a member of the press" is a hot seller these days.

... whoops, never mind, it's just Jason, carefully nursing his average of 26 hits a day and being as much of an irritant as those little dogs who won't leave you the fuck alone and insist on dry humping your leg at a cocktail party when you're just trying to have a conversation.

A word of advice, Jason: no matter how many times you link to Ann Coulter, I really doubt she's going to be giving you any sweet, sweet link love any time soon. Even howling-mad, hate-filled, right-wing screech harpies have their standards, you know.

Given that the U.S. troops are already thoroughly unpopular in Baghdad, I'm fairly certain this isn't going to help matters:

The Search for a Missing U.S. Soldier: A Double Standard?

In Karrada, the downtown Baghdad neighborhood where the search for the missing American soldier has been concentrated, the lockdown imposed by U.S. and Iraqi forces since Monday night could not have come at a worse time. What should have been a day of joyous celebration has instead turned into a time of high anxiety as American troops conduct house-to-house searches. The shops and businesses that line the neighborhood's two main roads, known as "Karrada In" and "Karrada Out," are shut on what should have been their busiest day of the year.

Although sympathetic toward the kidnapped American, especially since he is believed to be of Iraqi descent, many residents are resentful of the lockdown, saying it hurts them in the wallet. Others say shutting down the district to search for one man smacks of double standards in a country where kidnapping has become commonplace.

... The first day after Ramadan is the festival of Eid, a day of feasting, shopping for new clothes and giving gifts — and many residents of Baghdad would normally have made a beeline for Karrada's shops, where they can buy everything from large-screen TVs and air conditioners to garments and sweets. In anticipation of a spike in demand, many shopkeepers had doubled their inventory. But because the neighborhood has been shut off by U.S. and Iraqi forces, shoppers are taking their business elsewhere, much to the chagrin of Karrada's business community. "In a good year, as much as 20% of my annual income would have come from the first couple of days after Ramadan," says Mohammed Abdel-Jaffar, who sells crockery and cutlery. "But now my customers are probably shopping somewhere else."

If that attitude seems churlish, remember that the lockdown is just the latest in a long line of setbacks they have endured this year. Just this summer alone, Karrada witnessed several car-bomb and mortar attacks, most of them blamed on Sunni insurgents and jihadi groups. Each time, the district has shaken off the debris and gotten back to business. But the damage to their business is crippling, say shopkeepers.

It seems clear that, given a set of choices, the American military in Iraq can always be counted on to study them carefully, weigh the consequences appropriately and then, after due consideration, pick the stupidest possible option. You can pretty much make book on it.

President George W. Bush said Republicans can hold their congressional majority by focusing on national security and the economy, and that he will return to overhauling Social Security as a top domestic priority for his last two years in office.

Sure, I can understand that. Given that he couldn't do it with a solid majority in both the House and the Senate, it makes perfect sense that he'd try it again with the GOP imploding all around him. What could possibly be more logical?

I have a request. Do you have any commenters/members etc who are really good at tracking stuff down?

That depends. If you're trying to dig up dirt on left-wing, peace activists' gynecological problems, then Steve's your man. If not, we'll see what we can do.

A bit of a spot of bother with a comment made that calls an anti-gay lobbying group well...anti-gay. I'm trying to see if a group called "concerned citizens of bc" is tied in any way with fundie groups with words in it like "focus", "family", "values", "concerned" etc etc. I don't have the internet skills needed to track down registries etc.

A quick Google shows a number of hits for "concerned citizens of bc" but no actual home page. Readers?

But seriously, it isn't even fun watching this horror show anymore -- watching the flying monkeys of the Bush administration take to the airwaves and suggest, in all seriousness, that they were never into that "stay the course" stuff. Oh, no, not them -- that must have been some other collection of pigheaded, head-up-ass, delusional fuckwits who blew a gaping hole in the American economy and are now frantically scampering around, looking for someone to pin the blame on.

And I'm wondering if we can finally start using the "L" word -- "lie". As in, George lied. As in, deliberately told a falsehood, ya know, given that it's now obvious to any moderately sentient life form. Well, OK, obvious to everyone except for this collection of worthless retards, for whom George W. is, and always has been, the portent of the Second Coming, or something equally nauseating.

But it's Marshall's final paragraph that I think sums up what's happened here:

But President Bush can't and won't withdraw from Iraq because when he does, under the current conditions, he'll sign the epitaph, the historical death warrant for his presidency. Unlike in the past there are no family friends to pawn the failure off on and let them take the loss. It's all his. So he'll keep kicking the can down the road forever.

And that's pretty much all there is to say. What's a trashed American economy, almost 3,000 dead troops and an all-out civil war in the Middle East, compared to the breathtaking narcissism of Glorious Leader? Come on -- you really didn't even have to ask, did you?

Yes, I realize that that question is almost beneath asking, but work with me here. We here at CC HQ naturally like to poke fun at the frequently absurd, ridiculous, inane and mostly idiotic things that emanate from the wankersphere. But, every so often, someone says something so jaw-droppingly dumbfuck that it deserves special consideration.

Consider this recent piece by Proud To Be Canadian's Joel Johannesen, which opens thusly:

To liberals and their media and academia and the liberal-left voter generally, finding no fault in the new Harper Conservative government “raises red flags” (actual quote from a professor today). Yes, doing good means there’s something wrong.

Yes, by gosh, that sure is a hoot -- some whacked-out liberal academic finding "no fault" with the CPoC and suggesting there's something suspicious about it. Man, that prof must be a total fucking retard -- if this is what actually happened. However, since we all know Joel, we can immediately assume he's fudging the truth somewhere. So what's the problem, Joel?

It’s a “news” story not about how the Conservative government has in fact been so frugal in their expense accounts (damn! We must quash this!), but about how this must (must, by virtue of “science”!) point to corruption within the Conservative government. Based on pure bunk. Again. (Voila!)

Yes, by God, those blasted Tories are being frugal, and we just can't stand for that. Oh, wait ... apparently, there's more. I know -- let's go to the actual news piece and puzzle this one out for ourselves, shall we?

Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn was as surprised as anyone to learn that, according to publicly posted accounts, he hadn't spent a dime on hospitality this past summer.

I'm sorry ... not a dime?? That's not "frugal," that's just plain weird. So how does Blackburn explain this?

"I'm a minister who has to travel many times in different regions in Quebec, it's part of my responsibility," Blackburn said when asked about his latest quarterly "Proactive Disclosure" of expenses.

Well, how about that? Even Blackburn is puzzled by this since, as he openly admits, he does quite a bit of travelling and one would expect to have at least some hospitality-related expenses? But none?? Yes, I think that's cause for some raised eyebrows. But Blackburn recovers:

Blackburn's office later said it had missed the Sept. 30 reporting deadline, and would add some hospitality receipts to his next quarterly report.

Well, well ... how about that? Apparently, it's not so much laudable "frugality" as it is sloppy bookkeeping, or even (dare we say it?) possible fraud. So, despite Joel's completely artificial outrage, what exactly is it that has someone's antenna stalks all aquiver?

But for Arthur Schafer, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba, the story of frugality among Conservative cabinet ministers is more about absent receipts than missed deadlines.

When a minister's lone hospitality claim over three months is a $16.99 grocery bill for a party to celebrate the work of 15 ministerial staff, or $44.31 for "refreshments" for 14 people, the public has every right to be skeptical, according to Schafer.

Um ... yeah. In short, Joel is (once again) absolutely full of shit. This had nothing to do with frugality, and everything to do with blatantly unrealistic expense reports. But I'm sure you can read the rest of that article just as well as I can narrate it.

I'm not going to say Joel is a moron. But I will admit that, after spending any time over at PTBC, I actually swing by "The Politic" for the comparatively superior intellectual content.

OTTAWA -- The Bloc Québécois says it intends to keep the Conservative minority government in office for a "good while," encouraged by the Tories' openness toward Quebec.

With the Liberals already digging in their heels more than a month before the new Parliament begins and the NDP at least one vote shy of holding the balance of power, the Bloc will often be the deciding factor between Conservative success and an early federal election.

The leader of the Bloc Québécois is threatening to topple Stephen Harper's minority government and force an election.

Gilles Duceppe told delegates at a Bloc convention in Quebec City on Saturday that he'll work to bring down the Conservatives if they don't fix what he refers to as the fiscal imbalance with the provinces in the next federal budget.

Eight months. Yeah, that's about right when it comes to how long any politician can share the same bed with Stephen Harper. I'm surprised it lasted that long. You just know that those same-sex marriages are never a good idea.

Over here, the "eJankulator" comes on all Ward Cleaver and everything:

When you reach the age of six or so, you learn to respect the rules of the game. Before that, kids make up the rules as they go along, usually in response to losing circumstances. In kids, it's cute. But when adults do it, it's sort of pathetic.

Today on liberalvision, the liberal media producers decided that the best thing to do would be to assemble a whole segment devoted exclusively to a panel of three people who are by profession against the Conservative Party and everything it stands for, to talk about the Conservatives’ Clean Air plan which was released this past week. CTV’s “Question Period” has no Conservative Party member on the panel of geniuses, nor anyone who isn’t a critic of the plan.

Come on, Joel ... there are only two dots here. I have every confidence you can pencil in the line between them.

AFTERSNARK: It might be time to invoke some variant of the "MacKay rule" from back here, as Joel seems utterly incapable of coming to grips with the spelling of someone's last name:

... Tabor ... Taber ... Taber ... Tabor ... Tabor ...

Come on, Joel. It's only five letters. Concentrate. Once you can get through that "connecting the dots" thing, this should be a piece of cake.

[Status of Women Canada] has a grant fund of $11 million. This follows an announcement, made the previous week, that the government was reducing SWC’s $13-million operational budget by $5 million over two years.

Ottawa has promised $100 million a year to Afghanistan for 10 years ending in 2011. It's to be spent on everything from small loans for entrepreneurs - many of them women - to vaccinations, textbooks and de-mining programs.

Verner flew later yesterday to Kabul for a three-hour visit where she earmarked $14.5 million of already committed funding to create community-based schools for girls and train female teachers. Another $5 million is to help about 1,500 women earn money through home gardens.

I don't see any inconsistency here. Do you see any inconsistency here?

Apparently, there is rejoicing in the wankersphere these days as it has now been established that Hezbollah is no better than Israel (and what a relief that turns out to be):

Hezbollah Used Cluster Bombs

... Israel was criticized for its use of cluster bombs against Hezbollah during the recent conflict. As it turns out, Hezbollah was also using cluster bombs.

... The use of cluster bombs in civilian areas is prohibited by international law. Hezbollah apparently fired 113 cluster bombs at Israel during the conflict, targeting the cities of Karmiel, Kiryat Motzkin, Nahariya, Safsufa and the Arab village of Mghar.

Well, at least we can rest assured that we can all be equally appalled and disgusted with both sides in that conflict and ... and ... um, hello?

The UN has estimated that Israel fired cluster munitions containing at least 1.4 million bomblets during the conflict, and UN agencies are still tallying the number of unexploded ordnance in southern Lebanon.

During the conflict, Hezbollah fired 113 cluster munitions, containing about 4,400 bomblets, according to data from the Israeli police and military presented in the Human Rights Watch report.

Ah. So, 4,400 bomblets courtesy of Hezbollah versus at least 1.4 million delivered by Israel. I'm guessing that's another example of that right-wing "measured response" we keep hearing so much about.

The Israeli army dropped phosphorous bombs on Hezbollah guerrilla targets during their war in Lebanon this summer, an Israeli Cabinet minister said Sunday, confirming Lebanese allegations for the first time.

Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said yesterday he did not use the word dog to describe Belinda Stronach, the high-profile girlfriend he lost last year when she left the Conservative Party to become a Liberal, and that there is no official record of such comments.

"Check the record of Hansard," he told reporters on a ferry in Halifax harbour, referring to the official transcript of House of Commons proceedings. "It's not there. It's not there. I said nothing about a dog."

But that's irrelevant, as no one is accusing him of actually using that word, as the Globe article goes on to explain:

Which is technically true. Mr. MacKay did not directly call Ms. Stronach a dog.

But, on a less-than-stellar audiotape of Thursday's Question Period, a male voice can faintly be heard shouting a comment about a "dog" and Mr. MacKay's voice responds, "You . . . have her."

So this is the semantic technicality on which MacKay is going to hang his denial? That he didn't use the word? This is the sort of thing you expect to hear from a whiny, immature eight-year-old, not from the Foreign Minister of Canada's governing party. To describe MacKay as infantile would be a slap in the face to infants everywhere and, sadly, it doesn't end with him.

As A View from the Left reports, Harper-appointed senator Michael Fortier is bravely taking a pass on actually standing for election given the opportunity. Yes, profiles in courage, the lot of them.

WHOOPS, apparently, someone didn't get the memo as we can read here, where the Western Stunned Herd's Ezra Levant thoroughly pooches the doggie-related talking point:

Should MacKay really resign for muttering, under his breath, on the spur of the moment, that his treacherous ex-girlfriend was a "dog"?

But Ezra ... he didn't use that word, remember? Or aren't you on the CPoC talking point e-mail list anymore? I'm guessing they'll be calling to take back your secret decoder ring any day now.

They weren't explicit e-mails -- they were just, you know, overfriendly:

Two years later, the page, now 22, said, he wrote Foley to ask about hotels in Washington. "You could always stay at my place. I'm always here, I'm always lonely, and I'm always up for oral sex," he quoted the disgraced former member of Congress as saying.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Recall, if you will, that back here, I made the argument that, if Canada's Christian loons wanted to discriminate based on their religious beliefs, then it would be only fair to let everyone discriminate for any reason whatsoever.

Well, well, well ... hoist, meet petard. Dontcha just love it when karma walks up and bitchslaps someone who so richly deserves it?

Me, too.

JUST TO BE CLEAR, I don't actually support the firing. If you read the comments section there, a number of people suggest that there might be more here than meets the eye. Having a sign or sticker on your vehicle is in no way justification for getting fired, regardless of how put out it might make someone else. Freedom of speech and all that. In fact, as Ed explains, that should have been explained to the original complainant, and the matter left at that.

On the other hand, if the fired employee went beyond just advertising his beliefs, and spent company time badgering his co-workers with his point of view, that is, of course, a totally different matter, but there's nothing to suggest that that happened. In short, I don't see that the company had any justification for what it did.

Having said that, though, it's still amusing to see the hypocrisy, isn't it?

BY THE WAY, I wonder how many of the people who are now rushing to Mr. Padilla's defense gave a fuck when this happened? Just curious.

If you can even stand to look at it, your "liberal" media in action. It's not that George W. McFuckWit is either a pathological liar or just totally senile by now. Rather, it's that George S. didn't immediately cut him off and scream, "What do you mean, you've never been 'stay the course'?"

How long are interviewers going to just sit there, collecting their paycheques while cretins like Bush and Cheney lie outrageously right to their faces? At least Adam Carolla, on his radio show, had the spine to tell lunatic screech harpy Ann Coulter to take a hike when the occasion called for it. (I mean, if even Tweety reaches down and realizes he has balls once in a while, how hard can it be?)

So what exactly is it going to take? What's finally going to have to happen for someone like George Stephanopoulos to lunge out of his chair and start beating George Bush with an axe handle, all the while screaming, "No! No, goddamit, I can't take any more, you smirking, lying, piece of shit motherfucker! No more! Do you hear me!? NO MORE!!"

Or he could just call Bush a liar on the air politely. I guess that would work for me, too.